Ambition, page 2
And I knew when she didn’t text me last night. When she didn’t come home to the condo we’ve shared since we were eighteen and fully inducted members of Writhe. Just months after I saved her, or she saved me. Six years we’ve lived together, worked together, fought together. Our parents are as close as family.
We never had a chance to be strangers.
But my dad warned me.
“You love a girl in the organization, one you grew up alongside like Isadora Croft… Well, you’ll be damned to watch her turn into someone you don’t recognize. And Isadora is ambitious. Leave your heart out of it. I promise you, Von, she will.”
“And if I love her now? If it’s too late?” I was sixteen and hopelessly obsessed.
My dad’s eyes softened then and he smiled a little sadly. “One day she’ll do something love won’t cover. Then you’ll know it’s time to let go.”
Isadora keeps talking, her articulate, polished voice chinking through my armor. I long for the music from that fucked-up Halloween morning, if only to drown out her words.
“If we don’t ruin Vipera, Vipera will ruin us. And so will the Unsaints and their fucked-up parents, for that matter.” Because the Unsaints and the 6—their parents’ cult—gave us this job. “Vipera is importing too much weaponry, too many lethal drugs. Keeping the higher-ups coked up is one thing, but leaving guns to scatter about the streets of Alexandria is another. You heard the debriefing. Mads wants their supplier and he needs me to get it since you aren’t Theo’s type. Do I need to remind you, Mads is your father? You think I want to say no to him?”
As she lectures me, I can see her face inside my head, even without looking at her. Brown skin, wide cheekbones, pale red lips. Long, curly black hair. Eyes so dark they’re nearly obsidian. A foot smaller than me but with tight muscle, triceps earned from a million dips and push-ups and fists to the punching bags. Taut thighs from lunges and deadlifts and kicking my ass on the mat. She’s been trained as well as me. She’s earned her place in Writhe with as much blood and sweat as I have.
Now she’s climbing through the ranks with other bodily fluids for the first time, and I can’t fucking stand it. I thought when we started being indoctrinated as teenagers I would grow to accept women can be used in ways men oftentimes can’t within the organization. Many wives have done so, ones who came before both Isadora and me. I thought I respected it, even. The 6 don’t bother with women at all, but despite the fact they oversee Writhe, this newer, less-demonic organization I’m a part of decided to make use of everyone, regardless of gender. Progress, they called it.
Maybe I’m simply not as progressive as I thought.
But I still assumed all these years were enough to get used to the idea that one day the girl who smashed my face in my fifth birthday cake so viciously I got icing in my eye and subsequently, a minor infection, would be tasked with fucking a stranger. A crime lord. A man who could kill her and never lose a moment of sleep over her body decomposing in Raven River. She’s sleeping with him for secrets—intel on his supplier—and I’d much rather slit his throat to bleed them out. But even criminals have codes.
“Anyway, I only came here because I knew you’d want to see me in one piece, somewhere…neutral.” Her voice is precise, sharp. Ambitious, Dad once said. I had no idea ambition would one day break my fucking heart. “I’m tired and I’m going home.” She announces this all without ceremony. There is nothing like regret in her words. I should accept that as a good thing. She did the job; she came back to me in one piece.
She can break men into pieces, for that matter. She is not helpless.
But it feels as if her wicked words are carving me up right now.
I hear my pulse thump wildly in my ears as I imagine it. What the two of them did together. Theo Sancte is thirty-five to mine and Isa’s twenty-four. Tall, dark-haired, blue-eyed, a former MMA fighter thrown into leading Vipera by his cocaine king of a father. He has a penchant for submissive girls and displays of sadism. All facts gleaned from my dad, Mads, who was tasked with feeding information to Isadora. Her own parents couldn’t be expected to throw their daughter to the vampire, could they? But if you ask me, it’s pretty fucked up that our families are down with this kind of thing anyway. That’s another story for another day though, the way our parents treat our work.
And last night, Isadora had to do nothing but be herself to complete her job. Vipera has no idea of Writhe’s connection to the 6. It isn’t publicized for a reason. This one. Writhe and a handful of other underground criminal organizations hide their true loyalty in order to steal secrets, exchange information, lie down in a bed and get fucked by Theo Sancte, his hand around Isadora’s pretty little fucking throat.
Yeah, maybe I’m going off topic here, but I can’t help it.
That’s the same throat I’ve kissed. Bitten, even, once when we were very drunk, and I was feeling very brave, and she asked me for it. I bruised her that same night, for the first time, my thumb pressed to her waist.
It was new for me. I’ve always been cold and collected and calm even if it doesn’t seem like it right now. Even when I fuck. It’s a way to get off, but I don’t need any additional theatrics like Isadora loves. And I’ve tried to stay relatively detached from the sheer fucking longing of having Isa for my own, because it was never anything more than a pipe dream. We have different ambitions and we’re better as friends, plus less attractive as ransom or threats against the other when we’re not a couple. We know that.
But sometimes over the years, there were moments of weakness between us. Sometimes Isadora’s analytical mind would turn off and instead of finding a stranger at a bar to sate her ridiculous fucking sexual appetite, she would let me try.
Especially after the warehouse.
It’s like she wanted me to fuck her memories away.
And God, did I try. Usually when I was wasted, when I could convince myself I would be able to handle the sting the next morning when she walked out of my bedroom covered in my marks, but not any closer to belonging to me than she had been when we were thirteen. When we shared our first kiss and she wanted more from me, but I was too uncomfortable to give it.
So she found it elsewhere.
Just like last night. She didn’t technically have to do what she did. It could’ve gone to someone else. My dad would never force her to take a job like that. But being a foot soldier for Writhe isn’t enough for her.
Ambitious.
As she walks by me, no doubt to do just what she said and go home to our shared condo, I decide I want to be a little fucking ambitious myself.
I reach out and grab her arm, closing my fingers tight around her wrist, remembering the way it felt to have her cling to me after the warehouse. Her one single moment of professional weakness, her face pressed to my chest, and I knew then I’d give anything to be who and what she needed for the rest of our lives.
She doesn’t immediately jerk away from me now. She’s facing the matte black door in the back corner of the room so I can’t see her face, but I imagine it, vivid inside my head. Dark brows pulled together, lips pursed, her nostrils flaring as anger floods her veins at my fucking audacity. She doesn’t like to be grabbed—until she gives her permission, of course—but I assume last night she was hurt in ways she absolutely loved, so why not with me? Why not now? She likes everything dark and demented; I can be that.
“Von.” She says my name quietly, but she still doesn’t look at me.
I feel her pulse race beneath my grip on her arm. My gaze trails over her hair, the curls down her back ending at her waistline. Deep brown-black with threads of a lighter brunette shade. I clench my teeth as my eyes find her wide hips, round ass, the way her burgundy, slim-fitted sweats cling to her curves. My bare chest heaves in and out, my mind conjuring the worst of what could’ve happened to her last night.
Surrounded by men with bad habits and worse addictions. Guns, knives, coke, pills, Fentanyl. It would take nothing to end her; slowly, or quick. Whatever Theo wanted, her demise is only limited by his imagination. Of course I’d avenge her, but what would that matter with her gone?
The warehouse only gave me a taste. No one touched her there. Not really. The big man she disemboweled was only to look after her until his boss received the ransom for us.
It’s you he wants. I hear those words in my head every time I lay down to sleep.
Even last night, but it wasn’t Isa whispering them to me in the dark. It was me, thinking of her, worried Theo would slit her throat just because he could.
It feels like getting shot, imagining it, and I know that feeling. Nineteen, second year into work for Writhe, I was disrespectful to the wrong one.
I’d take that bullet again and again never to think of someone else’s fingers around Isa’s beautiful throat.
I force myself to lift my gaze up to the small of her back, brown skin visible from the white T-shirt she tied just above her waistline. I trace the dimples bracketing her spine, then rake my gaze higher to the curve of her back, the firm muscles of her shoulder blades, just noticeable outside the thick strands of her hair.
“You’re not going home,” I say, voice low as I stare at the slope of her neck.
“We’re not doing this,” she whispers, but she is perfectly still. Eerily so. I’ve never been this forward. She usually comes to me when she knows I’ve had a drink or two, or a joint or three. It’s not that she’s taking advantage; I welcome her arrival in those moments.
But I haven’t had either this morning.
I’ve had nothing but nightmares to get me the worst sort of high. Tossing and turning in my room just across the hall from her empty one.
Come back, I thought all night, staring at my phone. Come back. Don’t give him everything all at once.
But of course she did. Isadora Croft is a gorgeous little whore, and I’ve always known this about her no matter how fiercely I hate it.
I wouldn’t be surprised if it was her who took Theo to bed, and not the other way around.
A fierce surge of hatred and lust both nearly make my knees tremble.
I shift forward, abs tense, throat tight. In only gray basketball shorts and black, high-top sneakers, I don’t need to remove much to get her to taste me. To obliterate the images in my head of her on her knees for someone else.
We are absolutely doing this.
I draw closer, slowly releasing her wrist, one finger at a time as I curve myself around her back, dominating her. Not close enough to touch, but near enough to catch the scent of her. Something dark like rain, light like sea salt. And something that isn’t her at all, but probably him. Theo Sancte.
“What did he do to you?” My voice is low and cold, and I want her to react. Do something. Say something. Tell me he’s a job. He doesn’t mean anything. One day, when this is all behind us, you’ll only want me.
Tell me.
She snorts a soft laugh, then folds her arms across her chest, refusing to turn around. “All things you won’t, so why don’t we save this cock fight for another day when I’m less tired and more inclined to play your childish games?” She shakes her head once, the ends of her hair grazing her tailbone. “Goodbye, Von.”
But before she can walk away, I wrap one arm around her waist, tugging her smaller body into mine, only the dimness of Nox a witness to my possessiveness.
Immediately, she reacts. Her fingers dig into my forearm to break my hold and she jerks her head back, her skull driving into the top of my chest.
I smile, pulse racing as she gives me a little of the fight I want. But I learned all the skills she did, and I have the advantage of size. I shoot my other hand up, then wrap it softly around her throat. My fingers press along her jawline, and I tilt her chin up as I dip my own, lips coming to her skin.
“Did you want it?” I whisper, my nose skimming the tip of her ear. “Were you actually wet for a man like him?”
She curves her manicured nails deeper into my forearm but I don’t mind the bite of pain. “Let me go, Bentzen,” she snarls my last name, something she used to use as a nickname, but with far less bite when we were younger. Her throat is pulled taut, her words strangled, and I smile, pressing the crescent to the curve of her cheekbone.
“Did he hurt you?” My heart pounds viciously inside my chest and I know if Theo did, I will personally assure the crime lord’s demise. Writhe, the 6, Vipera, they are all secondary to her. I dig my fingers into her waist, the bare skin warm against my cold anger. I dip my head lower, nudging at the crook of her neck, lips ghosting over her collarbone, accessible from the V of her shirt. “And do not lie to me, Isadora. I know you better than he does.”
She stills. Then she says, her voice throaty, “After last night, I’m not sure that’s true any longer.”
And with that blow, enough to throw me off guard, to lower my defense in favor of feeling agony, she manages to grab the sensitive space between my thumb and forefinger and bite down with her fingertips, hard, then duck down and twist herself out of my grip.
Throwing up her palms, her shoulders heave as she glares at me, near-black eyes narrowed into obsidian slits, her nose crinkled into a snarl. “I did my job,” she says, her voice a hiss, warm-pink glowing across her cheekbones despite her defense. “And you’re angry because I can find out more than you. Fuck off, Von. You won’t ruin this for me.” She lifts her chin, daring me to do just what she said I won’t.
I’ve seen that pose before, so many times.
Ambitious.
I bite the inside of my cheek as I study her, my hands curled into fists at my side. For a moment, we only stare at one another. I take in her thick, dark lashes. Swollen lips, no doubt from Theo’s dirty fucking mouth all over her.
The fact she isn’t wearing a bra, her nipples tight brown points beneath her white shirt, pressing against the fabric.
And the mark on her chest. The recent bruise right there on the swell of her left breast.
Ambitious.
I force myself to smile, although I feel cold all over, seeing the imperfections. “I think you’ve ruined yourself all on your own.”
Her dark eyes meet my gray ones, and a smile hooks her full lips. “Slut shaming? I thought that was…beneath you.” She glances at my sneakers, then sweeps her gaze back up. But all at once, she drops her arms by her side. “When you decide you’ve grown up a little, I’ll let you know what I found out last night. Until then, don’t drag me into your pity party.”
“You mean the great intel on just how big Theo’s dick is?” I know it’s childish, but I can’t help it. I step forward, unable to stay away.
She backs up, her eyes never leaving mine as we do a familiar dance, but usually it’s in the context of controlled training. Fights with the sole intent of bettering ourselves.
This feels like worse.
I step forward. She steps back.
And again.
Until…her spine collides with the wall, her breath coming out in a small rush. “Seven inches, if I had to guess.” Her eyes narrow.
“Did you even feel it, considering you’ve had an inch more when I’ve been inside of you?” I press my palms on either side of her head, using my physicality to pin her to the wall.
She rolls her eyes. “That’s not really how vaginas work.”
For an abrupt moment, I want to laugh, she knows I do too, the way her lips tip a little upward and her eyes widen like she’s silently pleading with me to make this all a joke. But I don’t give in, and she leaves the shallowness of humor behind.
“You want to leave this alone,” she says quietly, her throat moving as she swallows.
I glance down, and then I see it.
What I missed before.
More marks around her throat.
My stomach flips, even though I know it’s her thing. Flashes of her asking me to hurt her in the months after the warehouse cascade through my brain and I feel turned on and nauseous both, imagining her doing the same with someone like Theo. It’s not that he or Vipera is bigger than Writhe or richer or anything, but he’s worse. He has far less morals and is rather indiscriminate in his killing sprees. Partly why the 6 see him as a problem. Plus there’s that penchant for sadism and submission that I don’t want anywhere near Isa, no matter that she loves the same.
“It’s just a job,” she whispers, like she knows I saw the evidence of her kink, but that’s not how I see it in my head. “Let it go, Von.”
But everything feels suddenly worse. More serious. I press each fingertip to the cold wall, trying to steady my breathing. To not think of Halloween, seven years ago, imagining if I didn’t run fast enough, if I didn’t get there quick enough, my life would end if hers had. I try to put the coldness back into place. It’s so easy with everyone else. Like breathing, my indifference.
But her…her.
I shake my head once. “Don’t go back there.” I try to stay rational. To give her a real reason as I glance at her throat. “If he did that the first night… What if he knows who you really are? Who Writhe truly is? What if—”
She places her palm over my mouth.
I know my logic is fucked. It’s a little bit of rough sex. I have no ground to stand on, but it doesn’t mean I won’t try.
Even so, my eyes flutter closed with my lips to her skin.
“Stop,” she whispers. “Don’t drive yourself crazy over…over me. I can take care of myself, Von. You know that.”
I think of the man she…hurt. Murdered.
It doesn’t matter how dangerous she can be. It doesn’t obliterate the thought… I want to take care of you.
Slowly, she curls her fingers into a fist until only her thumb is pressed to my bottom lip. “I’ll be okay. I promise.”
My eyes flash open.
I remember her in the redness of the warehouse room. The clawing of music in my ears. The way she must have been screaming over it, sitting beside a man she fought off or snuck up on as he guarded her—she never said which, why she went after him. Only that there was a pitchfork there. The warehouse formerly operated as a supply building for a farming company.
